Overcoming

When the sky is very bright I often get bad headaches. For some reason my eyes get extra sensitive to the light, making my head start to pound. If it gets bad I have to lay down, putting pressure on the sensitive area of my forehead in order to dull the pain.

Yesterday I felt such a headache coming on. I tried to head it off by taking aspirin. The kids wanted to go to an early movie, so I thought if I took medicine beforehand I’d be fine. Wrong. By the end of the movie I was feeling pretty bad. I barely had enough energy to get the kids in the car, make a quick trip through a drive-thru for some lunch, and then get home where I immediately went to bed. It took a good hour and a half after that for me to feel better.

There is not much I can do when the pain hits. Taking aspirin and then laying down and sleeping help a lot, but I pretty much have to endure the pain, especially when the aspirin doesn’t kick in for quite awhile. I know some people who get cluster headaches and very severe migraines. Their pain is far worse than mine.

Trials are like bad headaches. You don’t always know when they’re going to hit, but when they do, and you’re in the midst of the pain, there is often not a whole lot you can do to make the ache go away. Thankfully there is a remedy for trials that works more effectively than aspirin does for headaches. It is Jesus. He told us in John 16:33b, “‘In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’”

Life isn’t easy. There will be difficult times. But Jesus will be with us in the midst. With Him we can overcome anything.